


Ravus

by AuditoryCheesecake



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Painful Lack of Communication, dragon fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 08:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13026909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake
Summary: "And when Ser Lumiene at last heard the Lady laugh, it was like a veil had been lifted from her eyes. At last she could see the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun. Where before all had been gray, there were depths of color and light she had never imagined. She laughed for joy, and the Lady likewise saw the world anew. But through all the red roses and cloth-of-silver ribbons, the sweetest color they each now knew was the love in the other’s eyes."FromTales of Love and Chivalry, Sister Franchette, 3:95 BlessedDorian meets his soulmate in the south, and everything goes downhill from there.





	Ravus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iodhadh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/gifts).



Redcliffe is gray. Everywhere is gray, of course, but Dorian had sort of been hoping for… something. All those stories about Fereldan princes hearing their true love laugh as they pass each other on the road and going to see the red cliffs of Redcliffe together-- but no, Dorian hasn’t walked into a fairy tale. He hasn’t heard _anyone_ laugh in Redcliffe, never mind his true love, and everything is still very, very gray.

The invading forces of mages and magisters have dampened the spirits of the people who live here. Not to mention the death of their Divine, the tear in the Fade hanging over their heads and-- oh yes, the _demons_ popping up wherever they please. The end of the world might be upon them, for all they know. Dorian doesn’t blame them for feeling somber.

The impending arrival of the Herald of Andraste has sent a of frisson of excitement through everyone in the town, though. When the rift blocking Redcliffe’s gates is dispersed (and doesn’t Dorian want a closer look at that particular sort of magic), Felix starts shooting pointed and not at all subtle glances at Dorian’s hiding spot near the Chantry. 

Dorian waves him away. Felix is really quite awful at subterfuge. 

He listens at the window of the ramshackle little pub as Gereon, sounding nothing like his usual measured self, throws about the power of his new magical charges like the smarmiest villain in a Fereldan play. Dorian worries for him.

The Herald of Andraste, for his part, is soft-spoken and calm, and seems genuinely concerned by Felix’s dramatics. Dorian continues to listen after Gereon sweeps out of the building, calling for Felix’s doctor.

He reads Felix’s note aloud to his companions. The note, much like Felix himself, lacks subtlety. But if that’s what it takes to meet with the Herald, then that’s what must be done.

“I don’t think it is a trap,” the Herald says, as his friends protest that it simply can’t be anything else. “I want to check around a bit upstairs before we go, talk to the people here. Something smells shifty.”

“And fishy,” agrees one of the Herald’s companions. “Because of all the-- y’know. Fish.”

Someone else grunts. Their voice is low and gravelly. “It’s gotta be the Magisters. They’re never up to anything good.”

“How can they be, when they dress like that?” This third speaker is clipped and disdainful sounding. Orleasian accent, with other undertones. Dorian can’t quite place it. “Yellow. And those hoods!”

“You don’t like yellow, Ma’am?” asks the second.

“Certainly not, dear. It’s an utterly offensive color. “No one who wears it is ever ‘up to anything good.’ Blue is far preferable. Softer.”

“Plaidweave’s yellow, init?” interjects the first, who doesn’t like fish.

“Yes,” says the Herald, briefly.

“Good.” Dorian imagines the gesture that accompanies the raspberry must be offensive indeed.

“Green’s my favorite,” the Herald says, talking over this exchange. “Or it used to be, before this whole mess.”

The other man laughs, hearty and loud. It carries, like ripples in a lake. Dorian imagines others in the tavern might turn to look, to see who made such a noise. He would. He would even if he weren’t-- He desperately needs to know who this man is.

Color spreads through his vision, and Dorian grabs at the tavern wall for balance.

The wood is brown under his hand, weathered light in places. The grass at his feet is green, the water blue-- the flood of color overwhelms him, rushing in on his senses like the first time he’d dreamt of the Fade. 

There’s no question in his mind: this is what the stories are about, the folk songs and the fairy tales. This is what it means.

Cautiously, Dorian lifts his head above the sill, peers into the dim interior of the tavern. The Herald is easy to spot, his hand a beacon of shimmering green. Beside him are two women, one in blue and white, one wearing red and yellow. And there, leaning on a post, smile still wide on his face, is a Qunari. Dorian nearly sets the ground at his feet on fire. The Maker is playing a terrible joke on him.

The awful punchline: the colors start to fade. He wakes up in the morning and the ceiling above him is gray, the sky outside the window harsh white, sunny and cloudless and nothing like the vivid blue he remembers. Does he remember it?

Maybe he just imagined the he knows what color violets are.

He still has to get to the Inquisition’s headquarters, colors or no colors. He buys a small travelling meal from the innkeeper, and a cup of weak Southern coffee, and heads to the market, hoping to find someone who wants to sell a horse. Or maybe just let him borrow one.

He does not find any horses for sale. He finds angry Fereldans, and a lot of impractical advice about where he should look next.

He walks to Haven, the world around him slowly blanketed in white. Dorian hates the snow.

 

The next color Dorian sees is in the future. He lands on his ass in foul-smelling water, his eyes and ears filled with the sickly red hum of the twisted lyrium. The Herald of Andraste groans and curses behind him.

They’ve been displaced by Alexius’s spell-- not in space, but in _time_. His fears are confirmed as they slosh through the brackish dungeons under Redcliffe’s crumbling castle. Madame de Fer, the Iron Bull, and Enchanter Fiona all tell the same story: chaos, havoc, death, and a tear in the veil. The waking world of Thedas is being swallowed into the Fade, and the signs are everywhere.

The sky is a watery, sickly green, and it seems to quiver at the edges of his vision like silk curtains caught in a hurricane. The movement makes him seasick.

Dorian’s arm is bleeding, but he can’t waste a potion or a spell for it. The blood and sweat make his hands slip on his staff sometimes, but the cut itself is superficial. An hour ago-- a year ago?-- he would have cared more about the sleeve than the pain, but it seems apocalyptic time travel might cause one to reexamine one's priorities. 

“You know,” he tells the Iron Bull, leaning on his staff for a breather while the Herald of Andraste closes a rift. “I think I despise the color red.”

The Iron Bull grunts. “If that’s your biggest concern, then I’m inclined to agree with Leliana.”

“I have many concerns,” Dorian says. “It’s just easier to complain about some rather than others.”

“The colors started three months ago,” the Iron Bull volunteers, tone flat and disinterested. “I was in a cell, of course, so I don’t have much information to go off of, but it happened for everyone around the same time.”

“I would hazard that it’s a symptom of the veil eroding through the massive use of magic, blood magic in particular. The demons we’ve encountered seem far more corporeal than they often do, and I don’t think it’s because each individual is particularly strong. Although,” now that he’s thinking about it, “there also seems to be a preponderance of terror and despair demons. They could have been drawn to this location by--”

“Shut up,” the Iron Bull growls. “Just shut up about demons.”

“All right,” Dorian says. “Have you ever seen colors before now, then?”

“No.”

“Do you like any of them?”

“No. It was better when everything was gray. Why are are doing this?”

“I’m trying to make conversation,” Dorian mutters. “To distract myself from, well. Everything.”

“That’s nice for you. I’m going to focus on killing the shitstain who did this.”

And that would be Alexius, at least most immediately. And the Elder One, whoever he was, in the end. When he and Felix had decided to stop what Gereon was doing, they could never have imagined this. 

“We’ll fix this,” he tells the Iron Bull. “The Herald and I will go back and make sure this never happens. I swear it.”

“Fix your arm first,” the Bull says gruffly. “Or you’ll lose your grip on your weapon at the worst time, and then you’ll just be dead.”

 

Colors become brief moments of levity and confusion in his life. The echo of laughter from the Haven stables turns the gloves he’s buying bright red, and he drops them in disgust. A cry of victory from the training yards makes the illuminated pages of his book glimmer in the sun. The tavern is always warm and bursting with browns and greens and blues, and it takes all of his self control not to wind up there every evening, pining after the color gray.

They close the rift with the help of the Southern Circles, woefully under trained though they seem. Haven is awash in color, gleaming whenever Dorian turns his head, because Cadash is leading the drinking, and the Iron Bull is close by.

Bull grins at him across the bonfire, and it’s the cold that makes him shiver. 

He circles the edge of the bonfire’s light, careful of the red embers that drift on the wind. He reaches Bull and opens his mouth to say something, but the bells begin to ring.he turns to Cadash, drink dropping from his fingers.

Something bellows in the distance, a shriek of wrath and hatred.

The color leeches from the night as they scramble to battle stations. The red glow of the twisted dragon’s fire is the last color Dorian sees in Haven.

 

Skyhold is gray when the Chargers are out on business for the Inquisition. Dorian does his best to distract himself, to ignore how desperate he is to see Sera’s cheeks flushed red when she laughs, or even the soft yellow glow of the torches in the library.

When Bull is there, he always seems to be laughing. Dorian hovers nearby, just to soak it all in. He drinks with Sera or plays cards with Varric, and all that matters is that he’s close enough to hear.

If Bull comes over and sits with him, if he leans over to look at Dorian’s cards and give him bad advice, that’s nothing that Dorian can control.

He can never remember in the morning, if Bull made him laugh outright.

He wishes he didn’t want to know so badly whether Bull sees the amber of Antivan whiskey or the gold dust on Dorian’s eyes.

It’s a bad idea, the worst idea he’s ever had perhaps, but he follows Bull to bed one night. 

Bull’s skin isn’t gray, he discovers. Surely it fits as a general descriptor, but he’s hardly some uniform granite monolith. The skin along his scars and stretchmarks is paler, almost pinkish in places, the palms of his hands vary just slightly from the backs. His lips, when Dorian kisses him, are darker and fuller. 

He’s a more beautiful version of the way Dorian used to see the world, warmer and more alive than anything had seemed before. Dorian closes his eyes when he kisses Bull again, and when Bull laughs, it makes colors dance behind his eyes.

 

Fighting dragons with Bull is a specific type of torture. It’s all color and flash and fire-- unless they’re on a mountain in the snowy arsehile of Orlais and he’s sliding on sheets of ice while he tries to get off a single decent shot at the circling beast.

And when they do finally bring her down, the dragon plows into the stone they’re standing on with such force that it shakes the structure. She lashes out with tooth, tail and claw, knocking Dorian on his ass. 

He struggles to regain his footing, or cast a barrier at the very least. He can hear Bull and Cadash whooping and shouting challenges even though the ringing in his ears. The ice he’s lying on leeches the heat from his body, and Dorian would appreciate the blue color any other time, but now he just hates it.

He levers himself up on his left hand and aims with his right. It’s a poor shot, he’s never been as accurate with his right hand, but the blast of crude flame rips through her wing, grounding her for good.

It’s easier work for Bull, Cadash, and their stupidly large swords after that. Bull comes over to him afterwards, grinning from ear to ear and covered in blood. Logically, Dorian should assume that it’s mostly from the dragon, but the sight of wet, shining red blood on Bull’s face haunts him. It’s too much like that twisted future he’d sworn to avert. Too much like watching Bull die.

Bull helps him to his feet, and Dorian can’t look at him. The red on Bull’s skin turns his stomach. He doesn’t feel faint, but the steps in front of him waver suspiciously.

“I think some of my ribs are broken,” he tells Bull.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Bull waits for him to take the first step. “We’re out of potions now, but if you can make it back across the bridge to the tower, I’ve got a bowl of stew and seven blankets with your name on them.”

Cadash and Sera slip by them. “I’ll make sure the healers are ready,” Cadash says, and vanishes.

Dorian takes a hesitant step downwards, and then stops for a minute.

“Do you want me to carry you?” Bull asks.

Dorian shakes his head. “I can do it on my own, just-- distract me. What’s your favorite color?”

Bull chuckles. It doesn’t help Dorian’s dizziness. “Gray, if I have to choose.”

“That’s awful,” Dorian says. He means it, though of course Bull can’t possibly know that. “Tell me about the village that paid you with rice again.”

 

The peace talks at Halamshiral are a mess, but at least they end. And when the ball is finally over, Dorian can peel Bull out of their terrible uniforms and touch him again. Bull had hated the whole affair, and Dorian knows because he hadn’t laughed once.

But now, Dorian draws it out of him, makes this bed a place that Bull can relax, just for a little while.

And if he hates the color that the sheets turn out to be, well, there are plenty of creative ways to ruin fine silk.

 

Dorian goes to the tavern three nights after Bull and his Chargers return from the Storm Coast.

The torches are bright when he pushes the door open, flickering yellow. The riot of color and light is almost overwhelming, but Dorian buys a pitcher of cheap ale from Cabot and goes straight to the Chargers’ table.

“Beer?” he offers, holding up the pitcher.

The response is instant, loud, and unanimous. He’s pulled onto a bench between Dalish and Stitches, his back slapped and his hand clasped. He doesn’t miss how fingers linger looking for weapons, or the full strength behind otherwise friendly blows, but he doesn’t blame them.

Dorian Pavus has cavorted with the best, and he throws himself into their carousing with abandon. The world is a beautiful place, when it’s alight with reds and blues and greens. The mistral’s song seems sweeter, the firelight brighter...

“Your pants are truly terrible,” he tells the Iron Bull, who looks more amused with him than anything else. “I think they've gotten more terrible. Haven’t you ever heard of contrasting colors?”

“Can’t say I know much about it. I mean, that’s the purview of artists and sages, right?” Bull takes a long drink. “If I knew colors, I’d be back in Par Vollen, advising murals and illuminating manuscripts.”

“What a waste that would be.” Dorian grins. “You locked up in a dark, lonely tower, slaving away over a tiny desk, ink on your fingers and no one to hit--”

“It’d be a sunny garden actually,” Bull’s eye roams in the most delicious way. “And I wouldn’t be alone, I’d have my kadan with me.”

“I don’t believe I’m familiar with that term.” Dorian fills his cup, and after a moment of consideration, the Bull’s as well. It’s warm inside the tavern, and Dorian’s fairly certain it isn’t just his own cheeks heating when Bull smiles at him.

“Means lots of things.” Bull shrugs. “One of ‘em is… well, it doesn’t translate too well. Painter of skies is one way to say it, I guess. Bell ringer’s another, though I don’t know why.”

“In Tevinter, the common term is illuminator, funnily enough.”

“One more sign that job’s not for me then.”

“I imagine it would be harder to be a painter if you’re unable to differentiate color. Not impossible, but it would make for a different final product if you grabbed the red pigment instead of the green.”

“Winter scenes could be easy,” Bull says. “Who says I can’t see color?”

“You, I thought.”

“No.” Bull leans forward towards him, expression intense. “I never said that.”

“My mistake then,” Dorian says lightly. “More whiskey?”

Bull accepts a finger’s width more. “How long have you thought that?”

“Well, I was wrong, clearly.” He’d like nothing more than to escape. There’s someone else out there who has the ability to change Bull’s world in the way Bull has changed his.

“How long have you _seen_ color, Dorian?” Bull puts his hand on Dorian’s then. Maybe it’s all fairy tales, but the story had always seemed so possible until now.

“Since the day I met you,” Dorian admits.

“Your eyes are gray,” Bull says, almost at the same time. “Not gray exactly, but mostly.”

“So I’ve discovered.”

“Even with every other color in the world around me, your eyes are the most beautiful thing I can see.”

Dorian stares at him.

“Maker’s ass, get a room!” Krem shouts at them.

“If this is a joke, Bull--”

Bull shakes his head. “It’s not, Kadan. I swear.”


End file.
